Effective use of visual illustration entails consideration of specific instructional purposes, method of presentation, student characteristics, type of objectives, and cuing techniques. (LS)

Discusses a survey designed to assess the impact of publicity following the arrest of Patricia Hearst and concludes that pretrial publicity may not affect public opinion in a criminal case to the extent previously believed. (MH)

The major theme is that better and more productive studies could emerge if media research would move out of its traditional either-internal- or-external validity conflict. (Author/MV)

Using dramatic media presentations, explores issues surrounding the absence of negative consequences in alcohol consumption. Results based on 211 participants indicate that exposure to portrayals of alcohol drinking with negative consequences elicits the least favorable attitudes toward drinking. Exposure to the same presentation, without the…

Draws from the authors' own experiences in working with youth in an after-school media literacy club to examine the notion that it is possible to arrive at an understanding of how adolescents make meaning of popular culture texts by observing them in action. Teases out some meaning-making strategies that one adolescent used in strategically…

Examines the local reception of global Spanish-language soap operas, or telenovelas. Explores how young people talked about Mexican telenovelas in daily life. Concludes that the telenovela, within certain limits, reflected some of the national, ethnic, gender, and class tensions that defined the viewers' identities as working-class, Mexican…

Discusses digital media content on the Internet and describes Souvenir, a digital media annotation tool with Web publishing and email capabilities that allows people to use handwritten notes as a personal audio/video index to retrieve and share specific media moments. Explains how it can create hyperlinks to media stored in a digital library.…

Explores how motion pictures, television, and computers manipulate and rearrange the content and processes of communicated experience, thereby shaping how the audience perceives and interprets the physical and social reality depicted. Suggests that these media are fourth removed from reality (behind the Platonic Ideal, the actual, and art and…

Studies the accuracy of science reporting by comparing original research reports with their treatment in the popular press. Finds that most media reports, in the process of making science lively and acceptable, introduce some errors of omission, emphasis, or fact. Discusses potential effects on the credibility of scientists and scientific…

Examines the broadcasting experiences of Aboriginal radio in Australia with respect to the "cultural dependency" of a non-Western group within a Western culture. Finds a variety of problems facing a maturing media in the areas of professionalism, knowledge of audience, and communicational relationship between the majority and minority…

Analyzes the creation of the new media policy in Poland formed at the 1989 "round table" negotiations between the Polish leadership and Solidarity, a Polish trade union. Discusses the issues of censorship, access to newsprint and to the airwaves (primarily to television), and the legalization of underground publications. (KEH)

Describes a formative evaluation proposal submitted to the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in the United Kingdom to explore the potential impact of the Information Technology in Education Research (InTer) Program. The philosophies of evaluation and of the evaluator role are discussed, and aims and methodology of the evaluation are…

Examines gratifications associated with home video cassette recorder (VCR) use among Israeli school children. Finds that while the VCR is often used, it has not achieved any special priority in its perceived utility to gratify various needs. (MS)

Reports on a trial simulation in which exposure to publicity regarding the defendant and general stories about acquaintance rape were manipulated; participants then viewed an enacted rape trial. Finds that male subjects exposed to predatory rape publicity were pro-defendant, whereas women were unaffected. Discusses male reaction to information…

States that media effects are largely long-term and indirect, and that lay publics associate more risk with science and technology in their social context than with the underlying science itself. Uses biotechnology to explore media effects issues. Concludes that the scientific community's interests would be better served by news addressing…